2022 02 20 Sermon

Sermon for February 20, 2022 Epiphany 7 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church

Genesis 45:3-11, 15; Luke 6:27-38 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone

Have you ever walked into your living room or family room—wherever you keep the TV—and found everyone in the middle of a movie that you’ve never seen? You might ask them “what is it about?” They might say, “SHHHH!” or they might give you a brief summary. Then if you sit down to watch, maybe the movie kind of makes sense, but because you’ve missed so much, the full emotional impact doesn’t hit you because you don’t know all the details.

That’s what we’ve got going on in today’s first reading, which plops us down near the tail end of the story of Joseph and his brothers. We hear the dramatic revelation: “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” This is dramatic in itself, but unless you’ve read the whole story before (or at least seen a production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat”), you miss all the details that make this revelation so dramatic. You miss why they sold him, what hardships he suffered in Egypt, how many years he spent on the bottom rung of society, and his unjust imprisonment. You miss why Joseph’s life finally turned around, and how he gained respect and responsibility. You miss the twists and turns of what happened to his family back in their homeland of Canaan, and the hardship and hunger that drove them to seek food in Egypt. You miss how the brothers don’t recognize this one they’d left for dead decades ago, and how many times Joseph weeps in private, and how he plans and wrestles with taking revenge. All of that and more is behind that one little line, “I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.” I encourage you to read the whole story; it’s 14 chapters, Exodus 37-50.

But a couple of key points that we can take from it today. First is that the work of God moves slowly, and Joseph only sees what God has been doing in hindsight. The climax of the story, the short section we heard today, is decades in the making. And it takes months, even years, for Joseph to do the soul-searching and find peace from the trauma inflicted upon him, and to forgive his brothers, saying “do not be distressed…you shall settle here…and I will provide for you.” It took months, maybe years, to gain the perspective that even when he was at his lowest, God was at work the whole time. It took a long time to be able to look back in hindsight and finally say to his brothers, “it was not you who sent me here, but God, so that I could preserve your life and your families would survive.” I think many people today experience God in a similar way: It’s hard to see God at work “in the moment”, but in hindsight God’s work becomes clear.

The second point is the gift of grace that Joseph gave his family all because he looked back in hindsight and spent so long doing the soul-searching. He realized that if anyone could ever break the downward spiral of revenge and violence that his family was stuck in, it might as well start with him. It would have been so easy, and probably satisfying, for Joseph to give his brothers what they deserved—to treat them like they treated him. But Joseph took a leap of faith, and believed that new life could be possible for him and his brothers and their families—and it all started because he broke the cycle. Someone’s got to break the cycle. He allowed them to resettle in Egypt and not starve to death. They survived, and of course, many centuries later, one of their descendants would be Jesus himself.

We know, in hindsight, that what Joseph began Jesus fulfilled, because Christ broke the downward spiral of revenge and violence that humanity is stuck in, and he broke the cycle for all eternity by willingly descending to the bottom himself when he went to the cross. From the cross, Jesus looked at all the sin and death and violence and revenge in the world, and said: “It stops with me. Lay it all on me. I have come to forgive.” And his Heavenly Father raised Christ from the tomb, to put the exclamation point on it! To say “Yes! It’s true. He does forgive you, so turn to him, be honest about your failures, and live differently.” By following the way of Christ, we can be his partners, we can be vessels for God to bring forgiveness and new life.

From the cross, Jesus broke the downward spiral by looking at the true humanity in everyone, even his enemies. From the cross, Jesus fulfilled the challenging things he taught in the Sermon on the Plain: “Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who abuse you; if anyone strikes your cheek, offer the other also…lend, expecting nothing in return…Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Jesus is not saying “you should let people walk all over you.” Jesus is not saying “if someone abuses you, you shouldn’t do anything about it.” He is saying, that even at those times when you are being treated unjustly, by looking to God for help you can take action and decide how to respond, to reclaim your full God-given humanity. He is saying that you can choose action that will restore your life and might lead others to find new life, too. And he’s saying that like Joseph, and even like Jesus himself, you can get out of the business of pitting people against each other in that downward spiral, and instead you can be a vessel that God uses to bring healing.

This kind of thing has worked on a grand scale in people like Mahatma Gandhi, who put into practice many of the teachings of Jesus that we heard about in our gospel today. Gandhi led non-violent resistance against British colonial rule in India, and he lived by the principle that “an eye for an eye will leave everyone blind”. He knew that he had to help people break free from the downward spiral of violence, and because of it, it lead to the creation of the world’s largest democracy in 1947. In our own time, we witnessed the ministry of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who just died on December 26, 2021. In the aftermath of apartheid, that brutal system of racial segregation and discrimination in South Africa, Bishop Tutu led the Truth & Reconciliation Commission. This was another means of putting into practice the way Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Plain. The goal in South Africa was to let the people who suffered the human rights violations tell their experience in public, while also allowing the perpetrators of oppression to give full disclosure of what they’d done and request amnesty. This Commission also gave ordinary people a chance to express their remorse publicly. This way the whole country could be healed from the violence of the past, and move into the future together.

Bishop Tutu actually spoke to the youth of our ELCA 22 years ago at a big youth gathering in St. Louis, and told them this: “I come from South Africa, a country consumed with the most awful violence. Victims there told the truth about the atrocities in South Africa. The world watched and listened to stories of people in oppression, and the world wept as they wept. A miracle unfolded before our eyes. South Africa moved from ‘oppression to freedom’ and from ‘injustice to democracy’. We were prayed for… Look at us now. We are free. Our victory is also your victory. On behalf of millions thank you, thank you, thank you… There is no future without forgiveness and reconciliation. If there is no forgiveness, then that relationship is doomed... [But God says], ‘Hey, I have no one else but you to be my partner…to help bring forgiveness in a world torn apart.’ God says, ‘I love you. I love you. I love you. You are special and I love you. Everything else is a response to my love. My love is one that will not change.’”

You and I don’t have the influence of Desmond Tutu or Mahatma Gandhi, to change the world. BUT—we do each have our own little corner of the world, and that’s where we can take the leap of faith that we learn from Joseph and from Jesus. To forgive; to soul-search; to be reconciled. Our own little corner of the world is where we can have the biggest impact. So one last word that Bishop Tutu spoke to the youth 22 years ago—it’s a word for us here today: “Go from here knowing that you are God’s partner.” Amen.

https://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/3920 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa)